AIBU to wish there was at least one school that only took vaccined children

[mollymoo25]

name changed for this , although would probably be outed pretty quickly.

just wish there was one school that offered this so I didn't have to rely on other mums to vaccinate their children !

What she is suggesting will not help her though.

Her DC would be excluded from such a school, and would continue to mix with unvaccinated and vaccinated alike.

Yes, give the OP a break - she's obviously not being literal. oddboots has hit the nail on the head upthread - she has poorly children and has fears for their health and is thinking aloud.

Sorry your girls are poorly OP - is there any chance that over time they will improve or that after exposure to a virus for the first time, they will be immune to it themselves and its a question of 'ticking them off the list'? Not an easy childhood, for sure, but by the time they are teens and have been exposed to lots of things, can it get better?

This is AIBU, not children's health or even chat.

No-one is being rude to OP. They are pointing out that what she posted is indeed unreasonable. If OP did not mean to write what she out in her opening post, perhaps she would be better off starting a thread with what she does mean.

YANB OP. That is the rule in Canada and France (not sure about other countries). Presumably children with medical reasons not to vaccinated are exempt. I do believe every one who can should vaccinate to protect those more vulnerable.

YANBU I live in France and you have to present the child's vaccination card for nursery, school, public swimming pool, summer camp, etc. Of course they allow for children with genuine medical exceptions but not for parents who, for idiosyncratic reasons, don't vaccinate. Suits me just fine.

YABU. I am all for vaccinating but never for mandatory vaccinating. Also, can you clarify what you mean by a weak immune system, purely because it irritates me when people bandy the term around with no real substance behind it. I am immunosuppressed and people don't always take me seriously because some people (not saying it is you btw) claim they (or their child) had a weak immune system when they really mean "catches every cold going".

in france you cannot send your children to nursery or school unless they are immunised. it goes against our idea of freedom and parental control but it does make sense.

YANBU and I agree with the French model.

I also know people who have sent unimmunised children to school in France - they accepted homeopathic vaccinations. Also know unimmunised children in school in Australia & America (they signed exemption forms).

Anyway in terms of whooping cough you're probably just as likely to catch it from vaccinated adults who don't realise they have it.

Fwiw my unimmunised children have caught one vaccine preventable disease - rubella - only the vaccinated sibling caught it (although he was unimmunised against rubella at that time & I didn't bother once he'd had it) & he caught it from a vaccinated child.

My children mix with a reasonably large number of unvaccinated children.

That post isn't intended to say anything other than to try & reassure the OP that being unvaccinated doesn't automatically mean you will get everything going. Of course I am aware they are more at risk of catching a vaccine preventable disease than a vaccinated child but it is worth remembering they won't necessarily (& statistically are unlikely to do do). Despite media scare stories vaccination rates are high. Even against measles (the only paper which has looked at measles vaccination rates rather than only MMR found a vaccination rate of 94% iirc).

If your children have problems with immune systems then something like chickenpox or flu is probably going to be riskier in that you're more likely to come into contact with it & you might want to think about how to deal with that. . In terms of vaccine- preventable diseases I'd personally be most concerned about whooping cough in your situation because it is being transmitted by vaccinated adults do there's more of it around.

Talk to your immunologist - know what steps they would take after eg exposure to chickenpox - ime the NHS can take a long time to swing into action - would be good to have a plan in place.

Discriminating against children is wrong whichever way you look at it, especially when it comes to education.

It's worth remembering that when it comes to MMR, many children who are fully vaccinated with singles are still counted in the government statistics as being unvaccinated. I think parents are needlessly scared by government propaganda regarding vaccination, because they refuse to record a child as vaccinated if they don't have the MMR, despite the massive industry surrounding single vaccines.

We're in Spain and your have to show your child's immunisation record so they can start nursery/school. I think it's a good thing.

Yes. This is also how it is in the US. It's possible to get an exemption, but you have to really commit to your position and jump through some bureaucratic hoops. It forces the ambivalent anti-vaxing crowd into vaccinating.

Yabu. Fully vaccinated children still can and spread diseases such as whooping cough.

Still catch *

Sure, fully vaccinated children will tend to pick up diseases such as whooping cough as more people skip the whooping cough vaccination. It's not a perfect system, and it relies upon a certain compliance rate.

"homeopathic vaccinations"? Really? Now there's an oxymoron if ever I saw one. There is No Such Thing.

I think some people are unfairly slating you, OP. I understand that you don't really want to discriminate against other children who havne't been vaccinated for whatever reason, but rather just to protect your own children.

Sadly, as others have pointed out, your proposed solution is full of holes so wouldn't work, but I'm sorry you have to worry about your children's health.

There are many people who don't vaccinate because of medical conditions their children have, or who have done a lot of research and made a properly informed decision not to vaccinate. Fair enough. It's the conspiracy-theorists and "believe every horror story on Facebook" anti-vax bunch who I would like to smack around the head for putting other people's children at risk for no good reason at all.

That doesn't make any sense crowler. What has an unvaccinated child got to do with a vaccinated 'protected' child catching a disease they have been immunized against?

yabu

if your children are vaccinated then surely it doesn't matter?
and if they aren't then they wouldn't be able to go to the school

Because the unvaccinated population acts like a laboratory for disease to thrive and mutate.

Crowler the cases of whooping cough is higher in vaccinated children in this particular case I am referring to. Which disproves your 'theory'

YANBU (although there might be a need for a few exceptions - I'm not an expert) - sort of

I know a little girl who appears to have a weak immune system because a. she caught chicken pox twice and b. now she has got measles despite having the MMR.

If all (or nearly all) children had had the MMR she would not have caught it and been put at risk of such a dangerous illness. I was just saying to DH the other night that I would be annoyed if this was my child!

However, even if there was such a school your child would meet unvaccinated children anyway so probably wouldn't help. But would be a good think if all parents who didn't have a really good medical reason got their kids vaccinated. IMO.

I think it would be a good idea if children were required to be vaccinated before going to school unless they had a medical certificate to say why then could not have the vaccine.

As far as I understand OP her children are vaccinated but for other reasons she is worried about their vulnerability to disease.

I'm not sure it would solve the problem though - the first year of mixing with lots of other children (for mine, first year at nursery) was one long round of constant colds/viruses, none of which would be serious enough to be vaccinated against. If a child had a weak immune system that could be really debilitating.

knowledgeispower, what do you mean by the cases of whooping cough is higher in vaccinated children - do you mean to say that the percentage of immunized children getting WC is greater than the percentage of non-immunized children getting WC?

The WC vaccination is not perfect but it's still better than not being vaccinated.